


Small Steps Forward

by bellezza



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Coping, Gen, Grief, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Sarcastic Hawke, Warden Bethany
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-21
Updated: 2012-04-21
Packaged: 2017-11-04 01:14:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/388029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellezza/pseuds/bellezza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes all you can do to keep yourself going is take each day a moment at a time. Set between Acts I and II, after sending Bethany with the Wardens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Small Steps Forward

**Author's Note:**

> This was my third-person sample for a roleplaying game where I applied to play Hawke, and I liked it enough that I decided to post it as a oneshot.

The house was big, and grand, and fancy. It also mouldered and stank of rot and death.

Even the Hanged Man was more pleasant. The aroma of stale piss, vomit, and cheap ale faded into the background after a while, and Varric's rooms were rather cozy. But here, there wasn't an inch of carpet or settee not coated in dust; the furniture was in ruins, the tapestries in tatters, and the library in such a sorry state that Hawke's father, who had loved books, would probably have broken down and cried like a little girl if he could see it.

She waved her hand vaguely in the direction of a crooked portrait of a man who might have been her grandfather or great-uncle or someone. His face had been turned into a very convenient dart board. "Welcome home!"

Whatever Mother had expected it clearly wasn't this, and as usual Hawke was no help. Leandra took in the wreck of her childhood home with a look of heartbreak only a few degrees worse than the expression she'd worn when Hawke had told her of Be--of the expedition's outcome. She'd grown up here, but it didn't remotely look like it could ever house civilized life again. "What is that _smell_?"

 _That smell_ could be anything, but most likely Mother meant the stench of fresh decaying corpses winding its way through the house. They'd never had a chance to dispose of the slavers' bodies, so in the manse they'd stayed. "You don't like it? But I hand-picked the potpourri specially for you. The perfumer called it _Eau de Death_."

" _Marian_ ," Mother sighed, and it was in that tone that said _I really cannot handle this from you right at the moment, so would you_ please _find it within yourself to muster up a sense of tact?_

Hawke tried to muster up a smile, at least. "Look on the bright side," she said, and it was as close to an apology as she could get. "Anything you might have hated about this place as a child is gone. Now you can redecorate however you please, and you've all the time and money in the world to do it."

It worked, a little. Mother smiled in response. It was true enough, and if that was the one small comfort Mother could find, Hawke would help her take it. A wrecked house and a mountain of gold could never replace a lost son and daughter, but it could distract her from the pain until it was dull enough to handle without cutting into her heart--and Hawke was an expert at that sort of distraction.

But it couldn't distract Hawke. The house was just a house, just a building with stone walls and a roof and empty halls leading to emptier rooms. Maybe it could have been more, and maybe it still is. It was a home for Mother, at least. That was enough purpose to suffice, but it was hard to accept coping with grief as a purpose of any sort.


End file.
